Sticky bees: How honeybee colonies stay safe outside their hives.

A honeybee colony can only exist when many individual bees cooperate. When a hive becomes too crowded, about 10,000 of the workers and a queen leave the hive to form their own colony. While the scout bees are searching for a new nest site, the rest of the bees are exposed to all of the dangers of the outside world, such as predators and storms, and have to stick together for protection. They form a “cluster”, which hangs on a nearby tree branch (as in Figure 1a) until a new suitable nest site is found. Sometimes, beekeepers hang these clusters from their faces as a “bee beard”.